If there is no political angle in the story, the press will generally get it right. A story about a natural disaster in Asia doesn't have a political angle so they will probably report it straight, although if they can shoehorn in something about climate change, they will.
The media lies mainly by omission and framing. If a story reflects poorly on a Democrat the media will ignore it. Pop quiz: Who broke the Monica Lewinsky story? Answer: Matt Drudge.
The running joke is that if a Republican screws up, the story is about Republicans screwing up. If a Democrat screws up, the story is "Republicans Pounce."
Another tactic is to order stories based on whether they like or dislike the target of a controversy. If a Republican is the target, the story will lead with 5 grafs of inculpatory evidence and maybe a throwaway exculpatory fact at the end. If a Democrat is the target, the put in 5 grafs of exculpatory evidence after the obligatory Republicans Pounce language.
Bottom line: The vast majority of the media is on Team Blue, and that IMO is a function of institutions that pump out journalism majors and not the opinions of the owners. Even the Wall Street Journal is just another also-ran TDS rag these days.
A study by Syracuse University in 2022 reported that while 36% of journos identify themselvers as Democrats, just 3% identify themselves as Republicans, with the balance as independents. So, the managers of media channels could presumably encourage the public's trust if they were to employ Republicans and Democrats in equal numbers. Would they do that? Not a chance. Instead, they insist, "We don't let our personal politics affect our news coverage. What are you laughing about? Is something funny?"
If you ask a journo how he knows his newspaper or broadcast news program is any good, he will most likely answer, "Because we have won so many journalism awards." To look at the thumbnail bios attached to media columns, you would think that "award-winning" is a job title. But, who gives those journalism awards? Other journos. So, we have the paradox of journos giving each other awards as regularly as ever while public trust in the news media is lower than ever.
The journos' solution to this is for the public to learn "media literacy", as in the News Literacy Project cited in Halpin's substack. If the public doesn't trust the news media, the journos argue, then the public needs to improve. Good luck with that, ladies and gentlemen of the press.
I think part of the problem is a class issue. A journalist from Columbia is not going to be able to afford her Park Slope apartment on a journalist paycheck. Therefore most journalists today have Daddy support them which means they grew up wealthy and travel in the same circles as the PMC people they are supposed to cover.
The Pete Hamills of the world are long gone, replaced by socialite limousine liberals like Taylor Lorenz. They will give their PMC friends (who invariably lean left out of a sense of noblesse oblige) the benefit of the doubt and advance their ideology.
Something similar has happened to the national opinion magazines, Harper's, the Atlantic, and the New Republic. They cannot support themselves with subscriptions and advertising, so they are now the hobbies of rich heirs like Win McCormack and Laurene Jobs, and the MacArthur Foundation. Hence, their editors and writers need not publish anything most people want to read but they must and do publish what their benefactors want published.
It's a fair criticism, but the publications that purport to be 'fighting against the liberal media propaganda machine' often just mirror these tactics. And just throwing up your hands and believing whatever you want is folly. So it's not enough to blindly assume the 'enemies of the liberal media' are behaving any better, either.
Also, when Trump engages in five absurdities and/or depravities a week, (pursuant to the 'Flood The Zone' strategy Bannon touted as the tactic du jour of term 2) it's not 'bias' to report on all five, even if that means the newsfeed gets clogged with content that isn't flattering to him.
In just the past week and a half, Trump I.) pardoned a Honduran president who is one of the biggest narcotics traffickers in South America, II.) pardoned the notorious fraudster David Gentile, III.) claimed he was going to start land strikes on Venezuela, IV.) called the majority of the foreign-born population in the U.S. parasites, V.) said Democrats should be hung for sedition, VI.) vowed to send 500 more troops to DC.
Those all deserve to be reported on, even if it results in newsfeeds being blown up with unflattering stories about the POTUS. Saying "We've already reported (I), so bury items (II)-(VI) or it'll look like we have TDS" is *more* biased in its thinking, not less.
My point is that there aren't any "enemies of the liberal media." The historic ones, like the Wall Street Journal have been captured by the left. And that won't change until J-school changes. Fox is all that is left, and I imagine their journalists are liberal at heart, but downplay it because their paycheck depends on it.
And I think the mainstream media already reports every wet fart that Trump makes. Those stories are amply covered. Your issue is that that people have tuned out, so the stories are reported in a Blue Vacuum.
My issue was simply with the proposition that a press outlet has 'TDS' merely because Trump floods the zone with controversies, and said outlet reports on each of those controversies.
And you're wrong--there is a sizable right-wing media ecosystem outside of Fox, and it is in this system that many on the alt-right live. There is Newsmax, One America News Network, the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers, iHeart Media, the Bott Radio Network, the Epoch Times, and--most significantly--a web-work of rightwing (think Theo Von) or right-adjacent (think Joe Rogan) influencers and journos, from Jesse Singal to Matt Taibbi to Bari Weiss to Freddie deBoer to Glenn Loury to Julie Bindel.
It's not as large of an ecosystem as the legacy press, certainly, and its platforms are different--less formal newspapers, more substack newsletters and podcasts--but it is large enough to be influential, and there are large numbers of people who get their entire news diet from it. And its journalistic habits are pretty much the same ones you described, with the allegiance flipped--if you had spent the last week inside it, you probably wouldn't have heard a peep about the pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, while the video released by 6 democrats stating "you don't have to follow illegal orders" would have gotten wall-to-wall coverage.
Left and right media aren't remotely comparable. You can't say that Newsmax or OANN is the mirror image of CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, Bloomberg TV, CNBC, etc. It just isn't. It is like comparing a Division 3 football team to Ohio State.
It is entirely possible to avoid hearing stories that the right considers important. All you have to do is avoid watching those outlets you referred to.
It is impossible to avoid hearing stories that the left considers important because it is blasted all over. he left is inescapable.
BTW, Rogan is left, Taibbi is left, Bari Weiss is left. Sinclair just owns a bunch of local media properties. I guess they aren't officially part of the Borg, but they aren't right wing by any stretch of the imagination.
I said Rogan was right-*adjacent*. He's basically apolitical himself, but mostly favors guests from the right, and doesn't question what they say. Taibbi and Weiss are pretty textbook instances of your aforementioned 'lies mainly by omission and framing.' Taibbi was arguably less guilty of this circa 2020-2022, but ever since then he has downplayed anything remotely unflattering to the alt-right, (and *especially* Trump) in favor of boosting the sins of the left and penning approximately three thousand 'Russiagate' articles. Since January it's been particularly egregious, and he and Kirn have essentially barely addressed anything controversial Trump has done, largely because--for the time being--they've been bought. (Matt has openly said he's 'working with Tulsi Gabbard' to 'uncover' more 'Russiagate evidence' so he can push out more Russiagate-related articles, Kirn admitted the admin's offered him a position of Librarian of Congress--strong incentives not to get too critical of the people currently in charge) Weiss is basically the same, albeit without the financial conflicts of interest--as you put it, "If a story reflects poorly on the right/MAGA/etc., she will ignore it" (or, more accurately, completely downplay it).
Meanwhile Sinclair, Bott Radio, iHeart Media (i.e. Clearchannel) collectively own the evangelical Christian market. And Theo Vonn and similar right-wing influencers command the largest audiences on the platforms that essentially constitute the new mode of media consumption (cable TV is quickly dying, and YouTube is where you get your daily dose of the news now) and algorithmically cordon off their audiences from alternative views of the world.
*If* you listen exclusively to these outlets and/or influencers, and label the remainder 'Fake News', (which the big names in this ecosystem largely do) then you will only ever hear the news through a right-inflected lens. Stories that are unflattering to the right will be downplayed, stories unflattering to the left get boosted. It is a mirror image of the problems you mentioned with legacy outlets--and while you are 100% correct that they do not have the same amount of power the legacy media does, they *do* have a significant degree of power, because they are favored by the algorithms, (due to 'secular' technological reasons, IMO, but favored nonetheless) and the algorithms are the kingmakers of the new media ecosystem we are living in.
So it's really more like Ohio State versus a mid-tier school like, say, Iowa or MSU. Is there a money/power differential? Yes. Is Ohio State nearly always the odds-on to win the matchup, and the conference, relative to Iowa and MSU? Yes. But do Iowa and MSU still pose a decent challenge to Ohio State? Yes--OSU's football team can't just sleepwalk through an Iowa/MSU game, Iowa/MSU can absorb potential OSU recruits, and sometimes Iowa/MSU gets an athlete that is just as skilled as any on OSU's roster. There is no left-adjacent personality with an audience the size of Joe Rogan. And while Joe Rogan doesn't command the same money and resources as the New York Times, can we say that he is of little significance and no influence? Certainly not.
The ecosystem also includes back files and archives and even microfilm. Good indexes. Liberal media have these. Conservative media, to my knowledge, do not.
The WSJ has a fundamental problem with both parties now that Trump is at least partially a "new conservative" or at least Vance and Rubio are and quite a bit of policy. Old GOP is not at all happy with tariffs or closed borders. They are ok with tax cuts and cuts to entitlements so for them it's not all bad.
Lately a lot of bias in news is up to the individual writer more than the source publishing them.
The Taiwan/Tokyo/Trump story is a good one to use as an example. The WSJ account reads like what a foreign service professional would coach Trump to say. Responsible, not provoking, supportive of our ally, and exactly what the Japanese PM is doing anyway. Might well of been what was said. Also there is the filter of being translated into two very different languages.
Facts everyone could probably agree with are that Trump and Takaichi met and discussed Taiwan without any visible fireworks or difference of opinion. China wasn't overjoyed.
Ad Fontes the media rating website gives the WSJ fairly good ratings, I should subscribe instead of the NYT which tends to cause my blood pressure to rise with regularity. I wish there were a place to go to get unbiased news. Some places give both left and right but that's not the same as lack of bias. Most mainstream news does tend to get left of center ratings, and writers themselves even further left. There are people who track word choice across all media, and the entire industry is left coded.
Maybe part of the problem is that "just the facts" can be stated in a short three paragraphs, but people want content, so a story gets stretched out to 35 paragraphs with plenty to piss you off. I might be a lefty but I really want to hear a neutral telling, appealing to my left bias mostly just makes me suspicious.
I agree with all but the last paragraph. Just my own personal experience is that I now do not spend time reading long articles. Everything in a long article will sooner or later be posted in a short form. If not, it wasn't worth reading. There's also the thought that just reading the first line in a paragraph is enough. If it peaks the interest certainly read more otherwise, as they say, I got the gist of it.
What I always mistrust, when reading a news article, is the use of anonymous sources, and "people familiar with the matter." It seems an awful amount of conjencture is shared by these unnamed people in an effort to give weight to what becomes a non-story once more facts become available. That, and the MSM treating us as the 'uneducated masses' who can't understand nuance. It's not that we're stupid, it's that the 'facts' presented usually aren't verified facts.
I'm a moderate independent who holds Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and most other politicians in low regard. I want a news media that makes sincere efforts to provide all - ALL - necessary information for me to understand the story being presented no matter which side of the partisan divide it helps or hurts. I dislike blind partisanship in favor of anyone.
The legacy media lost much of my trust many years ago with their constant and blatant slanting of news coverage to advance their preferred narratives. Even on the several issues where I take the more liberal side, I want journalists to provide truthful information rather than trying to indoctrinate me into their personal beliefs.
The most obvious example of the legacy media's partisanship is how Joe Biden's cognitive decline was covered. When it was brought up at all, the angle was that Republicans were "pouncing" on unsubstantiated information. When the Wall Street Journal published a detailed story describing Biden's cognitive decline, almost all legacy media rushed to Biden's defense and attacked the WSJ reporters. When special prosecutor Robert Hur noted Biden's cognitive decline, the legacy media trashed him as a hack partisan; we now know for certain that Hur's description of Biden was correct. After Biden's awful debate performance in June, 2024 many legacy media tried to discount that performance as just an off night, he had a cold, he was tired, etc.
What is so damning is that this issue wasn't about public policies where people inherently have differing opinions. It was a medical question that almost all adults have seen in their own lives with older family members and friends. You could admit that Biden had badly declined while also thinking that he was a great President (or not). The legacy media gaslit their audiences - lied to them by commission and omission. There has been little penance for this corrupt behavior, hence the legacy media's low standing is much deserved. They have no intention of reforming themselves.
The switch from it’s our duty to diagnose the president based on video clips. To how dare anyone attempt to diagnose the president based on video clips. And now we’re right back to the media diagnosing the president based on video clips. It’s like the media seems to think we’ve all forgotten.
The economy is another one. It strikes me as the same meh economy we’ve had since about 23 where wages are slowly outpacing inflation; the top is doing reasonably well, but everyone else is still getting hammered by the loss of buying power due to the previous inflation. When Biden was in office we were treated to numerous stories about how awesome the economy was and any claims to the contrary were GOP propaganda. Even after a quarter of negative growth we were treated to numerous stories stating that two quarters of negative growth didn’t technically mean we were in recession. Then the instant Trump gets in office the tone switches to how horrible the economy is and how a recession is definitely right around the corner if we’re not already in one.
First, as the author alluded to, don't take any news org as the fount of gospel--it's important to realize that some publications try to be more impartial than others, but there's no such thing as a neutral observer on a moving train, and you have to always read them critically.
Second, you have to account for the way an outlet's audience will shape its coverage. It's why for basic news updates, press outlets with diverse and numbers-oriented readerships that generally don't reward yellow journalism are first among equals--publications like The Financial Times, The Economist, Foreign Policy, or (for business/finance developments) Bloomberg Businessweek. Their audiences are more likely to be looking for a lucid view of reality so they can make smart investments, not red meat--so that's generally what they produce. (But, again, there are no immaculate producers of gospel)
Third, remember the most trustworthy sources are primary sources, and you should seek those out whenever you can, as those can't be faked. The FRED provides updates on nearly all the key economic measures--CPI, PPI, U6--for free. Follow them to see how the economy's actually doing. For controversial incidents or issues, read the court proceedings and/or the judge's verdicts, which will go over the submitted evidence.
Most importantly, you have to make it a habit to get an array of perspectives, even bad ones--even if they're hopeless exaggerations, knowing what the partisan outlets are saying on the left and the right will tell you how each political bloc is going to frame a set of issues and what blinders they will be wearing. And if you don't challenge yourself by consuming intelligent viewpoints you disagree with, you'll become intellectually lazy--and intellectual indolence is a disservice to the society you live in.
Gender ideology is a useful heuristic when evaluating the media. Do women have penises?
The vast majority of our institutions have failed this very easy test, including universities, the media and professional organizations like the American Psychiatry Association.
I think the trustworthiness issue goes beyond the individual news stories that are published or broadcast. Outlets are also judged by what they choose to pursue and what they ignore.
When the New York Post was literally suppressed after publishing the Hunter Biden laptop story, most of the “reputable” media essentially called it fake news instead of actively trying to determine its veracity. That did nothing to improve the latter’s credibility. Fox News’s incessant praise of President Trump and the Washington Post’s constant efforts to discredit him expose the ideological rot coursing through the veins of many reporters and their bosses.
We all have neighbors and co-workers whose gossip we reflexively distrust. Sadly, we now have entire segments of the media that news consumers view the same way.
Our local rag does a reasonable job covering local issues. It’s the only reason I subscribe. I think they’d be better off to limit their publication to that and quit tossing money at the AP and the rest of their syndicated content.
You're right, in that of late I've read some things from them that seem slanted. Mostly though you can figure what they publish has gone through some sort of vetting for veracity. If I'm looking to get info on a breaking story it's maybe not so interesting, but also not so misleading. Reuters also.
"We've got him" has been the Narrative to this day. It will be 10 years starting in January. "Got him with the Mueller Investigation" Oops. Got him with Vindman" Oops. "I've got the proof against him Schiff" Oops. Uncomfortable Gotcha Questions incessantly never to his opposition party. The Narrative and Gotchas still going on to this day.
But the Narrative and Gotchas are well beyond their expiration date. And though the press has tried to move on from there. As you know, they have not been able.
What would Walter Cronkite have said long ago about Narratives and such questions? What would he suggest on how to get out of them and back to the trust of the American People?
And you_know_who knows how to play with Narratives and Gotchas and is teaching his people clearly about them. Time to ditch these in public, and soon.
"The walls are closing in on Trump..." Verbatim quotes from Newsweak, the Boston Herald, MSNBC, New York Daily News, Slate, The National Interest, CNN, The New Republic, Raw Story, Talking Points Memo, The Independent, National Security Journal, Vox, The Hill, Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, The Daily Beast, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and Mary Trump. No truth to it but plenty of narrative.
Your solution of self curating sources and doing your own due diligence amounts to a part time job for most folks. It works but it’s time consuming and frankly, probably unhealthy for most people. I use Ground News - and that helps somewhat - but even then I am suspicious of how they organize and rate sources and stories.
The key thing for me on distrusting the leftist media is the stories they chose not to report. If something is embarrassing to a Dem or reflects badly on the left, usually there are crickets. Iryna’s murder is just one example. Newsweek spiking the Monica Lewinsky story is another. While this behavior is usually helpful to the left (and harmful to the country as a whole) it can backfire spectacularly such as covering for Biden’s cognitive decline up until it was impossible to continue the coverup, and it was too late to have a primary to ensure a viable candidate.
I don’t trust any media that will try to bury stories that reflect poorly on their causes, candidates or narratives.
The organizations you suggest in your first recommendation do not exist anymore. Everyone is spinning. The best you can hope for is to focus on outlets that don’t outright lie, but rather only cover/promote stories that help their side. Then read across the political spectrum. Anyone not at least doing the latter is being misinformed.
This should not be that hard: "trust no one," "never trust experts," "cui bono." Every story in this world has an angle. If you don't know the angle, then Houston We Have a Problem.
If there is no political angle in the story, the press will generally get it right. A story about a natural disaster in Asia doesn't have a political angle so they will probably report it straight, although if they can shoehorn in something about climate change, they will.
The media lies mainly by omission and framing. If a story reflects poorly on a Democrat the media will ignore it. Pop quiz: Who broke the Monica Lewinsky story? Answer: Matt Drudge.
The running joke is that if a Republican screws up, the story is about Republicans screwing up. If a Democrat screws up, the story is "Republicans Pounce."
Another tactic is to order stories based on whether they like or dislike the target of a controversy. If a Republican is the target, the story will lead with 5 grafs of inculpatory evidence and maybe a throwaway exculpatory fact at the end. If a Democrat is the target, the put in 5 grafs of exculpatory evidence after the obligatory Republicans Pounce language.
Bottom line: The vast majority of the media is on Team Blue, and that IMO is a function of institutions that pump out journalism majors and not the opinions of the owners. Even the Wall Street Journal is just another also-ran TDS rag these days.
A study by Syracuse University in 2022 reported that while 36% of journos identify themselvers as Democrats, just 3% identify themselves as Republicans, with the balance as independents. So, the managers of media channels could presumably encourage the public's trust if they were to employ Republicans and Democrats in equal numbers. Would they do that? Not a chance. Instead, they insist, "We don't let our personal politics affect our news coverage. What are you laughing about? Is something funny?"
If you ask a journo how he knows his newspaper or broadcast news program is any good, he will most likely answer, "Because we have won so many journalism awards." To look at the thumbnail bios attached to media columns, you would think that "award-winning" is a job title. But, who gives those journalism awards? Other journos. So, we have the paradox of journos giving each other awards as regularly as ever while public trust in the news media is lower than ever.
The journos' solution to this is for the public to learn "media literacy", as in the News Literacy Project cited in Halpin's substack. If the public doesn't trust the news media, the journos argue, then the public needs to improve. Good luck with that, ladies and gentlemen of the press.
I think part of the problem is a class issue. A journalist from Columbia is not going to be able to afford her Park Slope apartment on a journalist paycheck. Therefore most journalists today have Daddy support them which means they grew up wealthy and travel in the same circles as the PMC people they are supposed to cover.
The Pete Hamills of the world are long gone, replaced by socialite limousine liberals like Taylor Lorenz. They will give their PMC friends (who invariably lean left out of a sense of noblesse oblige) the benefit of the doubt and advance their ideology.
Something similar has happened to the national opinion magazines, Harper's, the Atlantic, and the New Republic. They cannot support themselves with subscriptions and advertising, so they are now the hobbies of rich heirs like Win McCormack and Laurene Jobs, and the MacArthur Foundation. Hence, their editors and writers need not publish anything most people want to read but they must and do publish what their benefactors want published.
And broader general awareness of what you describe is another reason for distrust.
It's a fair criticism, but the publications that purport to be 'fighting against the liberal media propaganda machine' often just mirror these tactics. And just throwing up your hands and believing whatever you want is folly. So it's not enough to blindly assume the 'enemies of the liberal media' are behaving any better, either.
Also, when Trump engages in five absurdities and/or depravities a week, (pursuant to the 'Flood The Zone' strategy Bannon touted as the tactic du jour of term 2) it's not 'bias' to report on all five, even if that means the newsfeed gets clogged with content that isn't flattering to him.
In just the past week and a half, Trump I.) pardoned a Honduran president who is one of the biggest narcotics traffickers in South America, II.) pardoned the notorious fraudster David Gentile, III.) claimed he was going to start land strikes on Venezuela, IV.) called the majority of the foreign-born population in the U.S. parasites, V.) said Democrats should be hung for sedition, VI.) vowed to send 500 more troops to DC.
Those all deserve to be reported on, even if it results in newsfeeds being blown up with unflattering stories about the POTUS. Saying "We've already reported (I), so bury items (II)-(VI) or it'll look like we have TDS" is *more* biased in its thinking, not less.
My point is that there aren't any "enemies of the liberal media." The historic ones, like the Wall Street Journal have been captured by the left. And that won't change until J-school changes. Fox is all that is left, and I imagine their journalists are liberal at heart, but downplay it because their paycheck depends on it.
And I think the mainstream media already reports every wet fart that Trump makes. Those stories are amply covered. Your issue is that that people have tuned out, so the stories are reported in a Blue Vacuum.
My issue was simply with the proposition that a press outlet has 'TDS' merely because Trump floods the zone with controversies, and said outlet reports on each of those controversies.
And you're wrong--there is a sizable right-wing media ecosystem outside of Fox, and it is in this system that many on the alt-right live. There is Newsmax, One America News Network, the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers, iHeart Media, the Bott Radio Network, the Epoch Times, and--most significantly--a web-work of rightwing (think Theo Von) or right-adjacent (think Joe Rogan) influencers and journos, from Jesse Singal to Matt Taibbi to Bari Weiss to Freddie deBoer to Glenn Loury to Julie Bindel.
It's not as large of an ecosystem as the legacy press, certainly, and its platforms are different--less formal newspapers, more substack newsletters and podcasts--but it is large enough to be influential, and there are large numbers of people who get their entire news diet from it. And its journalistic habits are pretty much the same ones you described, with the allegiance flipped--if you had spent the last week inside it, you probably wouldn't have heard a peep about the pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, while the video released by 6 democrats stating "you don't have to follow illegal orders" would have gotten wall-to-wall coverage.
Left and right media aren't remotely comparable. You can't say that Newsmax or OANN is the mirror image of CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, Bloomberg TV, CNBC, etc. It just isn't. It is like comparing a Division 3 football team to Ohio State.
It is entirely possible to avoid hearing stories that the right considers important. All you have to do is avoid watching those outlets you referred to.
It is impossible to avoid hearing stories that the left considers important because it is blasted all over. he left is inescapable.
BTW, Rogan is left, Taibbi is left, Bari Weiss is left. Sinclair just owns a bunch of local media properties. I guess they aren't officially part of the Borg, but they aren't right wing by any stretch of the imagination.
I said Rogan was right-*adjacent*. He's basically apolitical himself, but mostly favors guests from the right, and doesn't question what they say. Taibbi and Weiss are pretty textbook instances of your aforementioned 'lies mainly by omission and framing.' Taibbi was arguably less guilty of this circa 2020-2022, but ever since then he has downplayed anything remotely unflattering to the alt-right, (and *especially* Trump) in favor of boosting the sins of the left and penning approximately three thousand 'Russiagate' articles. Since January it's been particularly egregious, and he and Kirn have essentially barely addressed anything controversial Trump has done, largely because--for the time being--they've been bought. (Matt has openly said he's 'working with Tulsi Gabbard' to 'uncover' more 'Russiagate evidence' so he can push out more Russiagate-related articles, Kirn admitted the admin's offered him a position of Librarian of Congress--strong incentives not to get too critical of the people currently in charge) Weiss is basically the same, albeit without the financial conflicts of interest--as you put it, "If a story reflects poorly on the right/MAGA/etc., she will ignore it" (or, more accurately, completely downplay it).
Meanwhile Sinclair, Bott Radio, iHeart Media (i.e. Clearchannel) collectively own the evangelical Christian market. And Theo Vonn and similar right-wing influencers command the largest audiences on the platforms that essentially constitute the new mode of media consumption (cable TV is quickly dying, and YouTube is where you get your daily dose of the news now) and algorithmically cordon off their audiences from alternative views of the world.
*If* you listen exclusively to these outlets and/or influencers, and label the remainder 'Fake News', (which the big names in this ecosystem largely do) then you will only ever hear the news through a right-inflected lens. Stories that are unflattering to the right will be downplayed, stories unflattering to the left get boosted. It is a mirror image of the problems you mentioned with legacy outlets--and while you are 100% correct that they do not have the same amount of power the legacy media does, they *do* have a significant degree of power, because they are favored by the algorithms, (due to 'secular' technological reasons, IMO, but favored nonetheless) and the algorithms are the kingmakers of the new media ecosystem we are living in.
So it's really more like Ohio State versus a mid-tier school like, say, Iowa or MSU. Is there a money/power differential? Yes. Is Ohio State nearly always the odds-on to win the matchup, and the conference, relative to Iowa and MSU? Yes. But do Iowa and MSU still pose a decent challenge to Ohio State? Yes--OSU's football team can't just sleepwalk through an Iowa/MSU game, Iowa/MSU can absorb potential OSU recruits, and sometimes Iowa/MSU gets an athlete that is just as skilled as any on OSU's roster. There is no left-adjacent personality with an audience the size of Joe Rogan. And while Joe Rogan doesn't command the same money and resources as the New York Times, can we say that he is of little significance and no influence? Certainly not.
The ecosystem also includes back files and archives and even microfilm. Good indexes. Liberal media have these. Conservative media, to my knowledge, do not.
The WSJ has a fundamental problem with both parties now that Trump is at least partially a "new conservative" or at least Vance and Rubio are and quite a bit of policy. Old GOP is not at all happy with tariffs or closed borders. They are ok with tax cuts and cuts to entitlements so for them it's not all bad.
Lately a lot of bias in news is up to the individual writer more than the source publishing them.
The Taiwan/Tokyo/Trump story is a good one to use as an example. The WSJ account reads like what a foreign service professional would coach Trump to say. Responsible, not provoking, supportive of our ally, and exactly what the Japanese PM is doing anyway. Might well of been what was said. Also there is the filter of being translated into two very different languages.
Facts everyone could probably agree with are that Trump and Takaichi met and discussed Taiwan without any visible fireworks or difference of opinion. China wasn't overjoyed.
Ad Fontes the media rating website gives the WSJ fairly good ratings, I should subscribe instead of the NYT which tends to cause my blood pressure to rise with regularity. I wish there were a place to go to get unbiased news. Some places give both left and right but that's not the same as lack of bias. Most mainstream news does tend to get left of center ratings, and writers themselves even further left. There are people who track word choice across all media, and the entire industry is left coded.
Maybe part of the problem is that "just the facts" can be stated in a short three paragraphs, but people want content, so a story gets stretched out to 35 paragraphs with plenty to piss you off. I might be a lefty but I really want to hear a neutral telling, appealing to my left bias mostly just makes me suspicious.
I agree with all but the last paragraph. Just my own personal experience is that I now do not spend time reading long articles. Everything in a long article will sooner or later be posted in a short form. If not, it wasn't worth reading. There's also the thought that just reading the first line in a paragraph is enough. If it peaks the interest certainly read more otherwise, as they say, I got the gist of it.
What I always mistrust, when reading a news article, is the use of anonymous sources, and "people familiar with the matter." It seems an awful amount of conjencture is shared by these unnamed people in an effort to give weight to what becomes a non-story once more facts become available. That, and the MSM treating us as the 'uneducated masses' who can't understand nuance. It's not that we're stupid, it's that the 'facts' presented usually aren't verified facts.
You are right. I stop reading when those appear. "people familiar with the matter" is simply a STOP READING notice to me.
I'm a moderate independent who holds Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and most other politicians in low regard. I want a news media that makes sincere efforts to provide all - ALL - necessary information for me to understand the story being presented no matter which side of the partisan divide it helps or hurts. I dislike blind partisanship in favor of anyone.
The legacy media lost much of my trust many years ago with their constant and blatant slanting of news coverage to advance their preferred narratives. Even on the several issues where I take the more liberal side, I want journalists to provide truthful information rather than trying to indoctrinate me into their personal beliefs.
The most obvious example of the legacy media's partisanship is how Joe Biden's cognitive decline was covered. When it was brought up at all, the angle was that Republicans were "pouncing" on unsubstantiated information. When the Wall Street Journal published a detailed story describing Biden's cognitive decline, almost all legacy media rushed to Biden's defense and attacked the WSJ reporters. When special prosecutor Robert Hur noted Biden's cognitive decline, the legacy media trashed him as a hack partisan; we now know for certain that Hur's description of Biden was correct. After Biden's awful debate performance in June, 2024 many legacy media tried to discount that performance as just an off night, he had a cold, he was tired, etc.
What is so damning is that this issue wasn't about public policies where people inherently have differing opinions. It was a medical question that almost all adults have seen in their own lives with older family members and friends. You could admit that Biden had badly declined while also thinking that he was a great President (or not). The legacy media gaslit their audiences - lied to them by commission and omission. There has been little penance for this corrupt behavior, hence the legacy media's low standing is much deserved. They have no intention of reforming themselves.
The switch from it’s our duty to diagnose the president based on video clips. To how dare anyone attempt to diagnose the president based on video clips. And now we’re right back to the media diagnosing the president based on video clips. It’s like the media seems to think we’ve all forgotten.
The economy is another one. It strikes me as the same meh economy we’ve had since about 23 where wages are slowly outpacing inflation; the top is doing reasonably well, but everyone else is still getting hammered by the loss of buying power due to the previous inflation. When Biden was in office we were treated to numerous stories about how awesome the economy was and any claims to the contrary were GOP propaganda. Even after a quarter of negative growth we were treated to numerous stories stating that two quarters of negative growth didn’t technically mean we were in recession. Then the instant Trump gets in office the tone switches to how horrible the economy is and how a recession is definitely right around the corner if we’re not already in one.
First, as the author alluded to, don't take any news org as the fount of gospel--it's important to realize that some publications try to be more impartial than others, but there's no such thing as a neutral observer on a moving train, and you have to always read them critically.
Second, you have to account for the way an outlet's audience will shape its coverage. It's why for basic news updates, press outlets with diverse and numbers-oriented readerships that generally don't reward yellow journalism are first among equals--publications like The Financial Times, The Economist, Foreign Policy, or (for business/finance developments) Bloomberg Businessweek. Their audiences are more likely to be looking for a lucid view of reality so they can make smart investments, not red meat--so that's generally what they produce. (But, again, there are no immaculate producers of gospel)
Third, remember the most trustworthy sources are primary sources, and you should seek those out whenever you can, as those can't be faked. The FRED provides updates on nearly all the key economic measures--CPI, PPI, U6--for free. Follow them to see how the economy's actually doing. For controversial incidents or issues, read the court proceedings and/or the judge's verdicts, which will go over the submitted evidence.
Most importantly, you have to make it a habit to get an array of perspectives, even bad ones--even if they're hopeless exaggerations, knowing what the partisan outlets are saying on the left and the right will tell you how each political bloc is going to frame a set of issues and what blinders they will be wearing. And if you don't challenge yourself by consuming intelligent viewpoints you disagree with, you'll become intellectually lazy--and intellectual indolence is a disservice to the society you live in.
Gender ideology is a useful heuristic when evaluating the media. Do women have penises?
The vast majority of our institutions have failed this very easy test, including universities, the media and professional organizations like the American Psychiatry Association.
I think the trustworthiness issue goes beyond the individual news stories that are published or broadcast. Outlets are also judged by what they choose to pursue and what they ignore.
When the New York Post was literally suppressed after publishing the Hunter Biden laptop story, most of the “reputable” media essentially called it fake news instead of actively trying to determine its veracity. That did nothing to improve the latter’s credibility. Fox News’s incessant praise of President Trump and the Washington Post’s constant efforts to discredit him expose the ideological rot coursing through the veins of many reporters and their bosses.
We all have neighbors and co-workers whose gossip we reflexively distrust. Sadly, we now have entire segments of the media that news consumers view the same way.
Add AP to that category, that's all our local rag prints.
Our local rag does a reasonable job covering local issues. It’s the only reason I subscribe. I think they’d be better off to limit their publication to that and quit tossing money at the AP and the rest of their syndicated content.
You're right, in that of late I've read some things from them that seem slanted. Mostly though you can figure what they publish has gone through some sort of vetting for veracity. If I'm looking to get info on a breaking story it's maybe not so interesting, but also not so misleading. Reuters also.
"We've got him" has been the Narrative to this day. It will be 10 years starting in January. "Got him with the Mueller Investigation" Oops. Got him with Vindman" Oops. "I've got the proof against him Schiff" Oops. Uncomfortable Gotcha Questions incessantly never to his opposition party. The Narrative and Gotchas still going on to this day.
But the Narrative and Gotchas are well beyond their expiration date. And though the press has tried to move on from there. As you know, they have not been able.
What would Walter Cronkite have said long ago about Narratives and such questions? What would he suggest on how to get out of them and back to the trust of the American People?
And you_know_who knows how to play with Narratives and Gotchas and is teaching his people clearly about them. Time to ditch these in public, and soon.
"The walls are closing in on Trump..." Verbatim quotes from Newsweak, the Boston Herald, MSNBC, New York Daily News, Slate, The National Interest, CNN, The New Republic, Raw Story, Talking Points Memo, The Independent, National Security Journal, Vox, The Hill, Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, The Daily Beast, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and Mary Trump. No truth to it but plenty of narrative.
Your solution of self curating sources and doing your own due diligence amounts to a part time job for most folks. It works but it’s time consuming and frankly, probably unhealthy for most people. I use Ground News - and that helps somewhat - but even then I am suspicious of how they organize and rate sources and stories.
The key thing for me on distrusting the leftist media is the stories they chose not to report. If something is embarrassing to a Dem or reflects badly on the left, usually there are crickets. Iryna’s murder is just one example. Newsweek spiking the Monica Lewinsky story is another. While this behavior is usually helpful to the left (and harmful to the country as a whole) it can backfire spectacularly such as covering for Biden’s cognitive decline up until it was impossible to continue the coverup, and it was too late to have a primary to ensure a viable candidate.
I don’t trust any media that will try to bury stories that reflect poorly on their causes, candidates or narratives.
The organizations you suggest in your first recommendation do not exist anymore. Everyone is spinning. The best you can hope for is to focus on outlets that don’t outright lie, but rather only cover/promote stories that help their side. Then read across the political spectrum. Anyone not at least doing the latter is being misinformed.
This should not be that hard: "trust no one," "never trust experts," "cui bono." Every story in this world has an angle. If you don't know the angle, then Houston We Have a Problem.
I am always searching for truth and the facts. One reason subscribe to TLP.